His confidence in the good intentions of men shaken, Bobby took to furtive ways.  Avoiding lighted buildings and voices, he sped from shadow to shadow and explored the walls of solid masonry.  Again and again he returned to the postern behind the armory, but the small back gate that gave to the cliff was not opened.  Once he scrambled up to a loophole in the fortifications and looked abroad at the scattered lights of the city set in the void of night.  But there, indeed, his stout heart failed him.

It was not long before Bobby discovered that he was being pursued.  A number of soldiers and drummer boys were out hunting for him, contritely enough, when the situation was explained by the angry sergeant.  Wherever he went voices and footsteps followed.  Had the sergeant gone alone and called in familiar speech, “Come awa’ oot, Bobby!” he would probably have run to the man.  But there were so many calls—­in English, in Celtic, and in various dialects of the Lowlands—­that the little dog dared not trust them.  From place to place he was driven by fear, and when the calling stopped and the footsteps no longer followed, he lay for a time where he could watch the postern.  A moment after he gave up the vigil there the little back gate was opened.

Desperation led him to take another chance with men.  Slipping into the shadow of the old Governor’s House, the headquarters of commissioned officers, on the terrace above the barracks, he lay near the open door to the mess-room, listening and watching.

The pretty ceremony of toasting the bandmaster brought all the company about the table again, and the polite pause in the conversation, on his exit, gave an opportunity for the captain to speak of Bobby before the sergeant could get his message delivered.

“Gentlemen, your indulgence for a moment, to drink another toast to a little dog that is said to have slept on his master’s grave in Greyfriars churchyard for more than eight years.  Sergeant Scott, of the Royal Engineers, vouches for the story and will present the hero.”

The sergeant came forward then with the word that Bobby could not be found.  He was somewhere in the Castle, and had made persistent and frantic efforts to get out.  Prevented at every turn, and forcibly held in various places by well-meaning but blundering soldiers, he had been frightened into hiding.

Bobby heard every word, and he must have understood that he himself was under discussion.  Alternately hopeful and apprehensive, he scanned each face in the room that came within range of his vision, until one arrested and drew him.  Such faces, full of understanding, love and compassion for dumb animals, are to be found among men, women and children, in any company and in every corner of the world.  Now, with the dog’s instinct for the dog-lover, Bobby made his way about the room unnoticed, and set his short, shagged paws up on this man’s knee.

“Bless my soul, gentlemen, here’s the little dog now, and a beautiful specimen of the drop-eared Skye he is.  Why didn’t you say that the ‘bittie’ dog was of the Highland breed, Sergeant?  You may well believe any extravagant tale you may hear of the fidelity and affection of the Skye terrier.”